Tag Archives: Star Alliance Gold

Welcome to my review of the Lufthansa Senator Lounge in the non-schengen transit area at Munich Airport. It is a Star Alliance Gold lounge near gate H22. Unfortunately I can’t provide any photo, because the lounge was too crowded to take photos.

Upon entering and presenting your boarding pass you’ll find yourself in the dining section of the lounge. You can find here a great buffet selection with cold and hot delights like German meatloaf, pretzels, hot tomatoes and bacon, cheese and a selection of non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks.

Lufthansa Senator Lounge (international) – Munich Airport

There’s also a coffee machine which makes espresso, cappuccino, latte macchiatto and other.

When you go further you’ll find a huge bar including bartender who can mix you almost any drink I know.

There are two more sections. The first is a relaxing areas with leather chairs, a selection of newspapers and a TV set. The second is a work area with sockets and desks. The lounge offers free Wi-Fi.

Overall this lounge is a good place to spend some time before your next international flight.

In this article I will reveal how to get the Star Alliance Gold status with a long-haul round-trip ticket or in other words with 20,000 status miles.

Miles & Bonus Gold / Star Alliance Gold

Have you ever heard about the Greece based airline “Aegean Airlines”? I guess you didn’t. Even in Europe most people outside of Greece don’t know it.
But the important point here is, it’s part of the Star Alliance. Which means you can accrual miles on their frequent traveller program, even if you’re based in Australia or other countries.

Aegean has only 3 status tiers. No status, Miles & Bonus Blue and Miles & Bonus Gold. For Blue you need 4,000 miles. Blue status has basically no benefits outside of Greece, except for priority waitlist if you missed your flight.

Now to the good part.

After you achieved Blue you only need 16,000 miles to get “Miles & Bonus Gold“, which equals Star Alliance Gold.
4,000 miles + 16,000 miles = 20,000 miles

20,000 status miles sounds awesome, right? Let’s make it even better: Aegean Airlines has currently a promotion. Sign up for their frequent traveler program and get 1,000 status miles as a bonus. That means, you only need to accrual 19,000 status miles.

Eligible miles

I achieved my Star Alliance Gold status with one round-trip ticket from Frankfurt, Germany to Auckland, New Zealand on Singapore Airlines. (11 614 status miles for each direction)

The distance between Sydney / Kingsford Smith (SYD) and London/Heathrow (LHR) is 10576 miles (via Singapore). That means, you can collect 21152 status miles on a round trip ticket when flying economy class.

In general, the cheapest booking classes are not eligible for miles accrual.
The difference between the cheapest fare and booking class W on Singapore Airlines for my flights between Europe and New Zealand was just 200 bucks.
[note color=”#FFCC00″]Info: Not sure about fare class when booking a flight? Send me an email or contact me on Facebook. I’m happy to help![/note]

Benefits of Star Alliance Gold

Holders of this status (like me) enjoy the following Star Alliance benefits:

Priority reservations waitlisting No seats left on your preferred flight? this will give you priority over others if a seat becomes available.

Priority airport stand-by Missed your flight? even if the next flight is fully booked, you get priority.

Priority boarding Board the plane at the same time with business and first class passengers (if available)

Priority airport check-in You can check-in at the business class or first class counter (depending on the airline)

Priority baggage handling Sick of waiting for your bags at the baggage claim? Your luggage gets a special tag and will be among the first unloaded.

While I focused first a bit on the introduction, I will now tell you more about the different benefits and requirements at the member airline frequent flyer programs.
In addition to the Star Alliance Gold benefits, you also get, what I call, “local benefits”. E.g. Upgrade voucher or Lounge access even If you’re only a Silver status member. These benefits depend on the member alliance and their frequent traveller program.

What is Star Alliance?

Star Alliance Livery at Munich Airport

The Star Alliance is a worldwide alliance of airlines. Star Alliance was founded in 1998 by 5 major carriers. Lufthansa, SAS, Thai, United and US Airways.

Today, Star Alliance has a network of more than 26 airlines to more than 1200 destinations worldwide that fly on optimized schedules. That means, even if you have to change the airline for a connection flight, it’s smooth between these airlines.
Many airlines are home in the same terminal at airports around the globe. That results in less hassle and shorter connection times. Many airlines are also able to check you through to your destination. Which means, you can collect all your tickets before you board your first flight.

How to get Star Alliance Gold status?

While *Gold is the highest alliance-wide status, it’s often just the medium to high tier status from a member airline perspective.

Examples
Lufthansa Miles & More has 4 tiers in their frequent traveller program. The no status member, the Frequent Traveller status, Senator and HON-Circle.
The Senator and the HON-status are both recognised as Star Alliance Gold when traveling on any star alliance flight.

ANA has also 4 tier status levels. Again the 2 highest levels are recognised as Star Alliance Gold status.

Singapore Airlines (my favorite airline) has 3 tier status levels. KrisFlyer, Elite Silver, Elite Gold.
For members of Singapore Airlines frequent traveller program this means, they have to achieve Elite Gold to get the alliance-wide Star Gold status.

Basically, you just have to achieve the right tier level on one of the member alliances to get the Star Alliance Gold status.
All member alliances have different requirements to their medium and high tier status members (segments flown, status miles accrual, qualification period).

In my next post I will feature the differences between some of the frequent traveller programs. All Airlines offer their members something special, what I call “local benefits”.

[note color=”#FFCC00″]If you have any question about frequent traveller programs, just send me an email.[/note]